Serendipity and Learning

 A few years back a recipe site would be like this: Google recipe --> Click --> Find recipe Now, it is like this: Google recipe -->Click-->Irrelevant story of the recipe -->Irrelevant picture ---> Still more irrelevant stories about the recipe --> Please check out my other recipes-->Useless version of recipe ---> Some more random pictures or ads --> and after what seems like 17 scroll downs is the recipe hidden away in the footer.  Obviously scroll through links pay in ads or page views I guess. Last week I went to the bank for a minor service issue. One of the "customer service" persons helpfully walks up, hears my problem so empathetically I actually make the mistake of thinking it is solved - and then helpfully says, "Sir, close the account and open another one" And after waiting for ages - when nobody could care about - suddenly on realising I was there for something more than a service issue - a swarm of people became interested in...

 Like Cinema, Sports and possibly Restaurants,  the Learning industry thrived in getting people together under one roof. I say, was with intent.  A few years ago, 2 day and 3 day training were the norm. Over the years, it had shortened to a day or half a day. Or a somewhere in between - 6 hours. This was pre-Covid. What will learning look like in a post Covid world?  For one, all of us, virtual workshop naysayers have moved to virtual.  ( Read here ) 1. The duration of training is a maximum of 4 hours. Though I did attend a fantastic 4 day workshop ( details here ). But of late, much of the work I have done is for under 4 hours, often 2 hours. So, 8 hour workshops are dead forever.  2. More importantly, while we have started using tools like Mentimeter - the interface of these tools is still clunky - so expecting that to improve.  3. I also feel simulation led learning will be a game changer in these times. Because simulations accelerate the learning p...

 A 4 day workshop in these days? Are you crazy? Sitting in front of a screen for 4 days?  Yes. And the fantastic team from Reflexive Lenses pulled it off. And I learnt a lot.  1. The sessions were tightly managed. Started on the dot, finished on the dot. (This is something I have come to love about virtual trainings. Almost every workshop has started and ended on time.) 2. There were many experts. Since this was a deep dive expertise was needed - and the team had an expert assigned to every virtual room. This was very useful - gave us the comfort of small group interaction, allowed us to dive deep and also allowed for expert interaction. This was very well thought I felt.  3. The break out room is a scream. The way it counts down and drags you into the main sessions is incredible. Usually as a facilitator when you get the team to work on activities, it is a struggle to get them to complete and come back to the main discussion. This was superb. 4. Almost all activitie...

 Yes, I can make tea. Not the la-di-dah English variety or the dipped in tea bag variety, but the thing Indians call as tea. It is what you get by the roadside - sometimes - not the roadside brown  kheer that is passed off as chai. But in most places in India (and Nepal), you will get well brewed, with milk, sugar, ginger or cardamom or an assortment of spices that is known as chai masala that is a satisfying brew morning, noon or evening. It all started with trying to go on a fast. And then, the one coffee that I had in the morning (a small cup, again - the filter coffee that is so dear to us) - if I did not have the coffee, I would get a headache. Tea does no such thing, so we tried to switch to tea.  And I wanted to get the perfect cuppa chai.  It started with unconscious incompetence - I had no idea how to make chai.  And so I tried. And moved to conscious incompetence. All my attempts to make tea will pathetic. Too much water. Too little chai. Too much wat...

 I am one of those people who looks at a restaurant menu and asks - what is the most different item on this list. I am vegetarian and within those limits, I always make it a point to explore something different.  And I have been rewarded with delightful experiences across the country. Whether it is in a little shack in Gokarna or a restaurant in Panaji or a small Maharashtrian outlet in Parel, Mumbai. To me, this is a great way to get the mind used to stepping out of familiar zones. And that is an important aspect of divergent thinking. Cut to lockdown and I tried various dishes from across the country thanks to chefs on instagram. For each of these dishes, I had to source things that are not normally seen in our kitchen. Panchphoran, Cinnamon, Kalonji, Mustard oil - to name a few. And thus Big Basket is an outlet for building divergent thinking muscle.  I learnt that there are different types of raisins, many herbal juices (positively abhorrent by way of taste, but with ...

 The gennexts have taken to reading Tintin. And suddenly there was a doubt.  What is a barnacle ? Or what is a bashi bazhouk ? Or why Thundering Typhoons? And led me to this...

 As schools have gone online, after the initial hiccups it has somewhat started working well. Not perfect, but well. And around now has come the first hurdle. Exams.  How to tackle exams in a covid scenario. I am only referring to school internal exams - not competitive ones like JEE entrance or anything of that sort.  Like everything else, the default approach to a new situation is to force fit everything we learnt in the earlier situation to the new one. So, in the same way schools have asked students to keep the camera and volume button on, camera to always the student in view at all times. I don't see how an invigilator can actually keep an eye at multiple students - seems impossible.  This is apart from technology solutions like no alt -tab of browser, connection drop = exam submission and all that.  The reason that all this is being done is to stop the child from "cheating" in the exam.  Why can't this be tackled differently? Why not have the onus of ...